


Surprise! You're Dead!

by Duckyboos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU - Santa Clarita Diet, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Parents, Alternate Universe - Zombies, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Bickering, Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, Cas is a zombie but he's high-functioning so it's cool, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Claire Novak's Parents, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Jack Kline's Parents, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff and Humor, Hand Jobs, Healthy Relationships, Horror Comedy, Humor, Husbands, M/M, Monster Castiel (Supernatural), Murder, Murder Husbands, Sarcasm, Suburbia, Zombies, dadstiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28675710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckyboos/pseuds/Duckyboos
Summary: Husbands Dean and Cas are living a quiet, suburban life, raising their teenagers Claire and Jack, in Santa Clarita, California. Things take a turn for the crazy when mild-mannered Cas goes through a dramatic transformation that leaves him looking and feeling better than ever, but ends up involving the whole family in murder.The family that slays together stays together. Right?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 117
Kudos: 135





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey look at me writing a steady, normal deancas relationship. As my lovely beta, [FriendofCarlotta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta) said: plenty of time for that to change. 🙃

"So you’re telling me that Cas is _dead_?"

Sure, Dean’s had some pretty crappy Tuesdays — he was once rear-ended by some dick in a semi (too many euphemisms there to keep track of), and there was that time in the bank when he ended up being a hostage during a major heist — but finding out that your husband of twelve years is the parrot in the Monty Python sketch?

Yep, that’s Top Three Shit Tuesdays material, right there.

“Technically, he’s undead,” Claire corrects with a grimace.

Dean blinks. Slowly. Like a bushbaby, but probably not quite as cute. Not with the way his mouth is hanging open like someone who’s just been told that their husband is _un_ dead(?). “He’s what now?”

Claire — being the best of both her dads (mostly Cas though) — patiently explains, “No pupillary response, he bleeds black goo instead of blood now, and look—” she none-too-gently pinches the delicate flesh of Cas’ upper arm through his thin t-shirt. Cas just watches her with the kind of apathy he usually reserves for Michael Bay movies or Almond Joy candy bars. “He doesn’t feel pain. Dad’s a zombie.”

“Woah, hey!” Jack intervenes, eyes wide. “There’s no need for that kind of derogatory language.”

_A zombie?_

Cas sure as hell doesn’t _look_ like a zombie. He looks like Dean’s husband, his best friend, his everything. There’s no drooling, moaning about ‘braiiiinnnnns’, or the lingering smell of rotting flesh — just the faint, familiar scent of Cas’ fruity body wash that he swears up and down doesn’t make him smell like a pina colada.

(It totally does.)

As their kids argue over the offensiveness of the term ‘zombie’ — _“We should use ‘walker,’” Jack suggests, to Claire’s response of, “Everyone walks! That’s super lame. And unoriginal.”_ — Dean ushers Cas over to their California king, so that he can at least lie down. Zombie (or undead or walker) or not, today’s gotta be taking its toll, ‘cause Dean certainly feels like he’s been through the wringer. He can’t begin to imagine how nuts it’s all been for Cas. 

Dean plumps up the stack of pillows behind his husband’s head, easing him down against them. Cas goes, though it’s with a humored kind of reluctance. Y’know, like when your grammy forgets your name for the eighteenth time, calls you her second husband’s name by mistake, and you just go with it, ‘cause it’s easier than correcting her?

Yeah, just like that. 

Dean perches on the edge of the bed at Cas’ hip, bringing his knee up onto the mattress. He reaches for Cas’ hand, thumb stroking over the smooth skin of Cas’ knuckles, bumping up against the edge of the bandaid used to cover Cas’ self-inflicted, _“Dean, come look at this,”_ cut that led to the black-goo-instead-of-red-blood discovery. “You okay?”

In response, he gets a raised eyebrow. “Apparently, I’m dead. I’m sure I’ve had better days.”

Undoubtedly. But Dean’s all about lookin’ on the bright side of life.

“Remember our second date, when you puked all over my shoes?” Dean asks.

Cas narrows his eyes. 

“That was worse, right?”

Mostly for Dean, admittedly. He had to squelch home in vomit-filled shoes, because there was no way he was driving his Baby anywhere. 

Still, it didn’t put Dean off, and he was back the next day with a clean pair of shoes and some fake rubber vomit from a joke shop. He persuaded an awkward and embarrassed Cas to let him into his apartment, where Dean dropped the fake stuff onto a pair of Cas’ shoes and declared them even.

“Are you forgetting that I threw up my entire insides today?” Cas asks.

And no. No, Dean is not. Dean will _never_ forget poking his head around the bathroom door frame in the posh house Cas was selling and seeing his husband lying there unconscious, surrounded by — and covered in — suspiciously fluorescent puke.

_Why does our relationship have so many barf stories?_

Cas is apparently thinking the same thing. “Maybe vomit is our love language.”

Dean laughs, he can’t help it. And if there’s a touch of hysteria to the high notes, well, then that’s nobody’s business but his own. He rubs hard at his right eye with the heel of his hand. “Yeah,” he sighs, laughter winding down, and if he’s not careful, he’s gonna cry. “Maybe it is.”

Cradling Cas’ limp body to his chest in that house, the metal handles on the mahogany drawers of the double sinks digging into his back, Dean believed he’d lost his husband. He thought that he was gonna have to make it through the rest of his life alone — without the person he loves most in this world. The best part of him gone. Just like that.

Thankfully, as he stared blankly at the puke-covered (and Dean means _covered_ like a frat-house-after-a-kegger covered) tiles, wondering how the hell he was gonna manage raising two teenagers on his own without resorting to bribery or murder, Cas had jerked back to life. 

Now, Dean may not be the smartest guy in any room (that would be Cas), but he’s not so dumb as to think that the lack of a pulse means anything less than death. Because the very first thing he’d done — after he’d splashed through the puddles of highlighter-bright vomit, like a less-enthused and infinitely more panicked Gene Kelly — was press his index and middle fingers to Cas’ neck. 

One hundred percent no pulse. Not even ‘oh, I made a mistake for plot purposes’ lack of pulse, but an actual _no goddamn pulse_. Cas wasn’t breathing. He was clinically dead. 

Like bona fide, never getting the fuck back up again, barring some kind of supernatural intervention, dead.

D-E-D. Dead.

Hence the Shakespearean wailing and Hollywood-dramatic clutching Cas to him as he declared vengeance upon... food poisoning?… the MRSA bug?

Dean had no clue what it could be. Cas had been fine at breakfast earlier, consuming his usual bland smoothie whilst Dean complained about the toaster oven with loose knobs. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that a messy, vomity death was on the cards today.

(Oh, and the icing on this multi-tiered shit cake? Turns out, that pearlescent puke had been dripping from the sinks too, right down the back of Dean’s shirt collar during his emotional scene with Cas’ body, and _yeahhhh_ , today really hasn’t been a high point in their relationship.)

“Did I get the offer?” Cas had asked, the very second he woke up like he’d been having a nap by the pool in a nice hotel, rather than being dead in a super expensive house he’d been trying to sell, with vomit in his hair, and drying all crusty and gross on his pants. Because, _priorities_. 

(To be fair, Cas’ boss is a douche, who’s been giving him shit about selling the Peterson house, even though it’s _“obviously priced well out of the market, Dean, and why did I even become a realtor in the first place? I hate it.”_ )

Dean didn’t have the heart to confess that the potential buyers barged past him on his arrival (he and Cas have a long-standing lunch date, and Tuesdays mean pastrami on rye), muttering about a lack of professionalism and an abundance of puke.

Their trip to the emergency room (that Dean absolutely insisted on, despite Cas’ laissez-faire attitude to the entire thing) was a bust. Life-threatening conditions have priority, and for all intents and purposes, Cas threw up (albeit a fuckton). As a result, the ER receptionist quickly went from less-than-welcoming to actively hostile. She graciously condescended to give them a stack of intake forms to sign, but kept jerking her chin none-too-subtly at the multiple signs posted around the waiting room, according to which the emergency room is for emergencies and fifty-two percent of walk-in cases to the ER are ‘non-urgent’. After almost two hours, Cas loudly declared for the seventh time that he felt absolutely fine — to the disgruntled side-eyes and annoyed grumbles of other patients — so Dean caved and they went home. 

Where Cas’ new, creepy-as-fuck colleague was waiting for them, leaning against his awful sports car (Beemers are for douche bags) and smirking. 

Dean could feel the grin freeze on his face as Cas made introductions, the pair of them smelling pretty funky, looking like hammered shit. “Dean, this is Balthazar. Balthazar, this is Dean. My husband.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Balthazar said, barely sparing Dean a glance. British prick. “I’ve had everything taken care of, Cassie. I made sure that the cleaning crew attended, and I’ve rescheduled an appointment with the couple. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

Cas sagged with relief. “Oh, thank you, Balthazar. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“So thoughtful,” Dean added through gritted teeth, scratching at his neck impatiently, picking at the dry flakes of vomit.

“I bought you a little get well gift,” Balthazar said, all aw-shucks-scuffed-toe as he handed Cas a small jute pot with a lavender plant in it.

Cas loves bees. Lavender attracts bees. Dean knows this because last year, for their anniversary, he dug up a huge section of their garden and planted a fuck load of lavender, and sunflowers, and cosmos, to bring more of the little stripy fuckers to their yard.

Boys like milkshake, bees like lavender. 

Cas likes bees. Balthazar likes Cas.

Dean was gonna punch Balthazar in his smug, European, trying-it-on-with-Dean’s-husband face.

“Thank you,” Cas said, painfully polite as always. Even when people don’t deserve it, because they’re trying to charm their way into his vomit-splattered pants, right in front of his fucking husband. “Dean, are you coming? We should probably shower.” He excused himself with a nod of acknowledgment in Balthazar’s direction, before he disappeared up the driveway, lavender plant in hand. 

Dean was gonna throw that shit right in the trash at the first opportunity. 

Together, Balthazar and Dean watched Cas go, and as soon as he was inside, Dean turned to Balthazar with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, ‘cause yeah, he was invited to shower with that hotass with puke in his hair, _not_ Balthazar. Who was staring at Dean with comically rounded eyes. “That was a crazy amount of vomit.”

_Understatement._

“Well, I’m not a medical expert,” Dean hedged, not wanting to tell this fuck-knuckle anything. “So I can’t say what the proper amount of vomit is.”

“It was a _huge_ amount.”

“Are you a doctor, Balthazar?”

Balthazar’s brow creased, and it did him absolutely no favors. “No.”

“Neither am I.” Dean tilted his head, trying his earnest look on for size. Years of watching his little-big brother with his law-talking and levelheadedness had prepared him for this moment. “So let’s not dishonor the profession, which takes eight years of intense training, by thinking we can give medical opinions, okay?”

Visibly taken aback, but locking it down quickly, Balthazar responded, “Fine. Let’s just stick to facts. _For now_. The homeowners came by. They didn’t like what they saw. So they don’t want to work with Castiel anymore. They’ll be working with me now.”

_Asshole._

“You’re stealing Cas’ listing?”

“No. The facts are, they fired him, then hired me.” Balthazar went to walk away, got halfway to his abomination of a car, before he thought twice and half-turned back to Dean. “And that was an _insane_ amount of vomit.”

So yeah, like Dean said, it’s been a crap day. 

But it could always get worse.

Palm over his chest, Cas announces to the bedroom of arguing kids and concerned husband, “I can’t feel my heartbeat.”

_And there it is._

“Yeah,” Claire goes around the other side of the bed. She looks down at Cas and then pointedly at Dean. “That’s a symptom of the whole ‘undead’ thing. That, and being completely driven by your id. No impulse control, so he’ll probably be all over the place. He might actually be _fun_.” 

“I _am_ here,” Cas huffily reminds them. “I can hear you.”

Dean ignores his husband in favor of asking their daughter, “So what now? How do we cure him? _Is_ there a cure? Is he gonna start eating brains? Should I chain him up?”

“I can _still_ hear you.”

Claire shrugs, a curl of blonde hair falling over her shoulder. “I dunno. Everything I know about zombies, I got from the movies.”

Because of course. 

“Maybe try the internet?” she suggests. 

“ _Oh yeah_ ,” Dean smarts, sarcastic, because that’s his go-to in batshit situations like this, when his husband is a _goddamn zombie_. “‘Cause I’m sure the internet has absolutely no misinformation about zombies.”

“That’s _not_ the correct term,” Jack insists from the foot of the bed, eyes liquid, and the kid has always had a heart too damn big for his chest (fucking _Sam’s_ influence). This might just be the thing that tips him over into veganism or yoga or some shit. “The term is _walker_ or _undead_.”

 _Yeah, walker_ is _kinda lame._

Claire rolls her eyes, already over this completely uninteresting, everyday, run-of-the-mill situation where one of her parental units is a fucking revenant. “Whatever. Either way, Dad’s not breathing. Can I have his car?”

“No!” Dean and Cas snap in unison. Though Dean does give her points for finesse. She’s been needling them about getting her a car for the better part of a year now. He’s almost impressed with her ability to crowbar it into any conversation, moment, or circumstance.

“It’s not like he’s gonna need it! Zombies shuffle everywhere; they don’t drive.”

“Undead!” Jack interjects and _right that’s it._

Dean disentangles his hand from Cas’ and turns on their kids. “Out! The both of you, go do your homework or find someone of any gender to rub up against; whatever it is teenagers are supposed to be doing these days. Standing on street corners, drinking sarsaparilla and flipping a quarter, I dunno.” He herds them both out into the hallway, ignoring their whines and protests. One hand on the bedroom door, Dean points a warning finger in Claire’s direction. "And don't you tell Kaia about this, for fu—frick's sake, Claire."

“Nice save,” Cas mutters archly from the bed, and Dean magnanimously lets him have that one.

“Not like I could anyway,” she responds as Dean slams the door in their faces. She continues shouting through the maple wood, “BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE A CAR TO GO SEE HER!”

Dean twists the lock — because one of their kids is feral, and the other is practically a three-year-old with no boundaries — and slumps against the door, squeezing his eyes shut. He breathes in deeply, needing just a single, solitary moment to get his shit together.

_Jesus H. Christ._

Dean’s a mechanic. Cas is a realtor. They do not have the experience required to deal with this level of supernatural fuckery. Maybe, on a good day, Dean could take on an overzealous ghost — not a poltergeist, just a standard boo-ghost — but this? This is well outta his wheelhouse. 

Still, he’s gotta try. ‘Cause goddammit, this is _Cas_ , and Dean would die for the asshole, zombie or not. They can figure this out together; it’s just gonna take some outside-of-the-box thinking.

(Who knew those life-hack channels Cas likes to have on when they’re cooking dinner would finally prove their usefulness? Not Dean, that’s for damn sure, but that technique for mental compartmentalization really is coming in handy right now). 

When Dean opens his eyes again, praying to any entity past or present that this is all just a fever dream (though this seems like the kind of thing Anansi would pull, so he skews his frantic pleas in that direction), Cas is still reclining on the bed, a mountain of pillows propping him up. He doesn’t look ill, dead, or anything less than bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. In fact, he looks even more arresting than usual (which Dean hadn’t previously thought possible, but here they are).

Cas has always been the wet-dream kind of beautiful, but right now, there’s something about the splay of his dark hair, the gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes, that has Dean unable to look away. 

“Come here, Dean,” Cas orders with a crook of his finger, and fuck, like Dean’s gonna say no to that.

Dean goes over, slotting himself up against Cas on the bed, molding himself to his husband’s side, and swinging a leg over Cas’. He rests his ear on Cas’ chest, hoping against hope that he’s wrong about the lack of a heartbeat.

He’s not. Where there should be a steady thud, there’s nothing. 

_Holy fuck. This shit ain’t just bananas. It’s an entire fruit salad._

Dean’s not emotionally forthcoming at the best of times. This is not the best of times, so he resorts to type. 

_Jokes and sarcasm it is._

“Gotta say, Cas, you dying? Mighty inconvenient.”

Though after the rough year they've had, it's hard not to feel like he's made the right decision in noping the fuck out of this whole ‘being alive’ bullshit.

Cas hums his agreement. “Believe it or not, I actually feel the best I’ve felt in a while. I feel good. Just hungry. _Very_ hungry.” He pets Dean’s hair, blunt fingernails scritching Dean’s scalp. 

Dean leans into the touch, cat-like and eager for the attention. “Hungry for what? Brains? A nice rib-eye? Leafy greens?”

He feels rather than hears the gentle rumble of Cas’ laughter. “Everything. Sex, food, adventure. There’s this urge to do anything and everything all of a sudden. It’s overwhelming, but also... nice.”

“‘Nice’?” Dean repeats incredulously. He lifts his chin to look his husband in the baby blues. “Banana bread is _nice._ A hot bath after a long day is nice. Being a zombie—”

“—undead—”

“—is not _nice_.”

“Oh, I don’t know. My back doesn’t ache anymore. That’s pretty _nice_.” Cas says, mouth tilted in a small smile. “And you smell _really_ _nice_.” He leans down and presses his lips to Dean’s. It’s sweet and nice (ha!) like always, chaste for a moment, Cas’ lips only opening enough to tease a hint of wetness; a promise of something deep and real and amazing. 

Dean groans his frustration, wanting more, and Cas chases the noise with his tongue, licking his way into Dean’s mouth, kissing him deeply. He's warm and soft and Dean can feel his own stomach tense, arousal pooling low in his abdomen. Jesus fuck, they’ve not made out like this in years and it’s turning Dean’s crank like nothing else. 

Thing is, when they first got together, they were fucking like Russell Brand on a coke binge. As the years wore on and they adopted the kids, they settled down and got themselves right into a rut. Sex once a week, blow jobs whenever they can manage and never from the floor, ‘cause it’s hell on the knees. 

Their sex life isn’t bad or anything, it’s just _fine_. Average. It’s the sex life of busy, late-thirties-adults with full-time jobs and two teenagers who don’t understand that you don’t age out of needing physical intimacy. 

Or being horny. 

As evidenced by the way Cas and Dean are full-on porn kissing now: all wetly parted lips and eager tongues, licking filthily into each other’s mouths, overdone and nasty, and super fucking hot. 

“Cas,” Dean pants, breaking away to pull a shaky breath down into his lungs, dick already on board and pleasantly heavy in the crease of his thigh.

Cas huffs a laugh against Dean’s cheek, stuttered drag of stubble and skin, and they’re trading breaths and little kisses like they can’t _not._

Lips clinging softly, Cas pulls back a little, dragging his mouth along Dean’s jawline and down the tight tendon of his neck, sharp points of his teeth nipping as he goes. 

Dean angles his head to give his husband more room to give him middle-school hickeys ( _what if he’s a vampire, not a zombie, oh god_ ), turned on, confused and giddy with it. He clings to Cas with both hands, twisting his fists in the threadbare Faith No More shirt Cas wore on their fourth date. 

Fuck, this is insane. Right? Cas was fine this morning, dead this afternoon, undead just a couple of hours later. Getting laid feels like it should be lower on his list of priorities, but then Cas is doing amazing things with his tongue and his hands, and Dean’s only human. 

_Unlike Cas._

Fuck. 

"Cas…” Dean tries, but _goddamn._ “What are we doing?"

There’s color on the sweep of Cas’ cheekbones when he looks up at Dean. His lips are kiss-swollen, spit-shiny and pink. The fevered brightness of his blue eyes is rapidly giving way to the blackness of pupil. He’s fucking gorgeous and Dean inwardly curses himself for being a cockblock. "If you don't know by now, then I'm not sure how to break it to you."

Cas dives in for another filthy-hot kiss before Dean can respond, his mouth soft and hot and open over Dean’s and it’s good. Perfect. He’s warm, so warm all over, wherever Dean touches, getting his hands on Cas’ skin, rucking his shirt up his stomach. Cas shivers from head to toe, spreading his fingertips in Dean’s hair, pushing down on the crown of Dean’s head.

Breaking the kiss, Dean goes, lets Cas guide him, push him where he wants, until he’s at crotch level, staring down the rather impressive bulge in Cas’ sweatpants. Dean flicks his gaze up to his husband, who’s watching him with a dark-eyed intensity that Dean hasn’t seen for a good three or four years. He licks his lips and Cas strains up with his hips, wordlessly pleading. 

Who the hell is Dean to say no?

Settling himself between the spread of Cas’ legs, Dean curls his fingers in the elastic waistband of Cas’ sweats and waits for Cas to lift up before he tugs, dragging the pants down just far enough to have Cas’ hard dick slapping up against the flat plane of his stomach, string of precome a sticky thread connecting his skin.

It’s fucking obscene and Dean’s mouth waters at the smell of Cas so close, but he’s gotta ask. Would never forgive himself if he didn’t, because although it’s been a strange day and a touch of necrophilia is probably shelved somewhere near the middle of all the weird, he needs to make sure this is what Cas wants. 

“Y’sure about this, Cas?” ‘Cause Dean both absolutely is and really shouldn’t be. His husband is technically a zombie, yet here he is, with a gorgeous blood(black goo)-rich erection, and the kind of desperation — hunger, really — that Dean hasn’t seen him express for years. It’s fucked up, and _yet_...

“Suck my dick, Dean,” his usually quiet and unassuming husband orders. _Fuck_ , is it hot, the command lodging somewhere deep inside Dean, making him flush all over with arousal. 

_All-fucking-righty then._

Dean gets a hand around the thick, satiny length of him, leaning forward to dip his tongue into the slit, tasting the bitter saltiness of Cas.

Cas lets out a strangled growl, his fingers gripping and pulling at the fine strands of hair at the base of Dean’s neck, tugging and twisting, and Dean is more than fucking into this. 

“Yeah? This _nice_?” He sucks the head into his mouth, reveling in Cas’ pleased gasp, the way his knees cinch around Dean’s rib cage, stomach muscles fluttering. Dean traces one of the thick veins from root to ridge with his tongue, watching Cas’ reaction the whole time. It’s gorgeous: Cas panting, breathing uneven, squirming on the bed, head thrown back into the pillows. 

“Being dead makes you horny, huh?” Dean jokes, and yeah, it’s probably too soon, but instead of scolding him, Cas fucks past Dean’s lips, crown of his cock bumping along Dean’s soft palate.

“Undead,” he corrects on a slurred, throaty laugh, which gutters off into the sexiest moan Dean thinks he’s ever heard when he swallows his husband down, fitting as much in as he can whilst he’s waiting for his gag reflex to get with the program. “God, Dean.”

Dean hums his agreement, the vibrations and clench of his throat _very_ clearly working for Cas. 

Out of the two of them, Dean’s usually the dirty talker, but back in the day, Cas could run his filthy mouth with the best of them. A skill he’s apparently been quietly honing all these years.

“Dean, fuck. Your mouth. You feel amazing. Dean, you’re so good— God, I want— Fuck—”

Dean pulls off a little way, slapping an arm across Cas’ hips, ‘cause as fucking hot as all this is — and despite his best efforts — he does have a limit, and there’s been enough puke for one day. Drawing back, he sucks hard, pressing his tongue flat against the underside of his husband’s cock, Cas’ taste thick and heavy at the back of his throat.

Cas is breathless with it, chest heaving air into his lungs, and when Dean hollows his cheeks, sucking hard, Cas tries to roll his hips, attempts to fuck himself further into Dean’s mouth, but can’t. He makes a frustrated sound; a _whine_ , really. Frantic and needy, Cas scrabbles for purchase, yanking on Dean’s hair with one hand, digging blunt fingernails into Dean’s shoulder with the other. “Dean, _please_.”

Ever the humanitarian, Dean takes pity on his husband, moving his arm away. 

“Can I…?” Cas asks when he lifts his head to make eye contact.

Dean pulls off with an aching jaw, licking his lips and swallowing. His throat already feels raw, but he’s so fucking turned on. Cas’ skin is gleaming with Dean’s saliva, and there’s a flush of red on his chest and cheeks. He looks like every fantasy Dean’s ever had. “Yeah, but don’t be too rough.”

Apparently, Cas stopped listening after ‘yeah’, ‘cause his fist in Dean’s hair tightens and he shoves his cock at Dean’s face. Dean takes the thick length of his husband’s dick back into his mouth, relaxing his throat as best he can. 

Cas keeps pressing him down, forcing more and more of himself into Dean’s mouth. He starts thrusting hard, harder, the dirty talk coming thick and fast. “Dean holy shit, you feel amazing, so fucking amazing, the mouth on you, make me come, you’re going to make me come, oh my god—”

Dean has to rut against their four-hundred-threat-count sheets. He’s gonna come too, because this? This is God-tier levels of hotness. 

“Please,” Cas begs, desperate and on edge. “Please make me come, Dean. Fuck. I’m gonna—”

He’s hitching in and out in an artless rhythm, inching more and more of himself down Dean’s throat on each pass. His fingers twist into Dean’s hair, nails digging into his scalp, holding him right where he wants him, not allowing Dean the chance to even think about backing off.

Not that Dean would.

“Touch yourself,” Cas gasps suddenly on a rushed exhale, like it’s super important that Dean obey instantly, right this fucking second. “Do it.”

 _Fuck_. 

It’s clumsy as hell, especially with a dick in his mouth, but Dean manages to push his own sweatpants down far enough to get his cock out. He squeezes, feeling his cock jerk violently in his palm. 

Goddamn, he’s close. 

He jacks himself at the same pace Cas is fucking his face, smearing the precome gathered at the slit down the length. It’s tight and cramped, but the pleasure is winding tight in his gut, right there alongside Cas, whose eyebrows are drawn together, blue eyes black, stomach muscles taut. 

_Holy fucking fuck._

Dean swallows around Cas’ dick, throat fluttering, and Dean’s mild-mannered husband curses a blue streak; dark, devastated eyes fixed on Dean’s mouth, breathing ragged, right on the cusp of coming. 

Hand tightening in Dean's hair to the point of pain, Cas shoves himself right past Dean's gag reflex, once, twice, three times before he's coming on a choked moan of Dean’s name, hot and bitter, flooding Dean’s mouth and throat, spilling out past the seal of his lips, down his chin. 

Dean follows over pretty much straight away, shaking apart around the orgasm that he didn’t know he needed, slicking his fist and the sheets below with creamy white, all while Cas levels fucked-out praise at Dean’s talented mouth. 

He almost face-plants his husband’s softening dick as it slips from between his puffy lips, but he forces himself to roll away at the last second, thanking those same entities from before that he and Cas had the foresight to buy such an unnecessarily large bed. 

On his back, he wipes his chin with his hand before kinda inch-worming his way up the sheets, rucking them up as he goes, until he’s next to Cas, the pair of them boneless and sated. 

They lie there in a pleasant, holy-shit-did-we-just-do-that-and-during-work-hours-too silence for a little while. Until it becomes too much and too heavy for Dean to bear, because holy crap, this has been a _day_. He turns his head to the side, staring at his husband’s profile. His sharp jaw, his plush lips, his straight nose. 

“How’d I get so lucky?” Dean rasps, and it’s not entirely a rhetorical question. 

Cas’ eyes flutter open. He side-eyes Dean, knowing precisely where Dean’s head is at. “Deal with a demon, I always thought.”

Dean huffs a quiet laugh. “Sounds like something I would do.” A couple of beats pass, and he turns serious. “I thought I lost you today, Cas. It was the worst thirty seconds of my fucking life.”

Cas shifts then, turning onto his side and facing Dean. He tucks one hand underneath his head, the other reaching out to stroke gently at Dean’s face; his cheeks, lips, chin. “I’m sorry you went through that, Dean. I can only imagine how it must’ve felt. If the situation was reversed and it was you, I’d—” Jaw clenched, he cuts himself off, and Dean gets it. Nothing else needs to be said; Cas is okay, he’s here. They can figure everything else out together.

Dean catches Cas’ hand by the wrist, touching his lips to the pads of Cas’ fingertips. “How you feeling now?”

“I feel great,” Cas says, stretching, all fluid and feline-like, the contours of his muscles shifting beneath flawless skin, and Dean must’ve been dosed with viagra or something, because his dick twitches hopefully like it hasn’t gotten the memo that he’s a good fifteen years past being able to get it up again this quickly. 

Though, that seems to be less of a priority when Cas’ stomach makes a gurgly feed-me noise. “Hmm. I am hungry though. Have we got any ground beef?”

***

Claire may be related to Cas by blood (she's technically Cas' niece via his dead twin Jimmy), but that kid is one hundred percent Dean Winchester. She does stupid shit that Dean would be proud of himself — if it were him doing the stupid shit and not his kid. When it’s his kid, it’s irresponsible, totally not cool, and a groundable offense. 

Which is one of many reasons she is not allowed a(nother) car, and coincidentally, precisely why he's not eager to leave his aforementioned clone and his id-oriented zombie husband alone together. 

Jack, bless him, is about as forceful as Coldplay carried on a summer breeze (and is also easily bribed by a rustling packet, like an excitable puppy), so there's not a high chance of _him_ enforcing Dean's 'no zombie shenanigans' rule whilst he's out at the store. 

('Cause Cas ate all their raw meat [heh].) 

"Just…" He looks between the three of them, sitting shoulder to shoulder on their couch. Dean attempts to appear stern as they're trying to appear disciplined, and _holy shit_ , nobody in this family can fucking act. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Stupid like…?" Claire asks, only to get a nudge in the ribs from Cas' extremely pointy elbow, and Dean suddenly feels like the asshole principal from The Breakfast Club.

Except, it's less 'mess with the bull and you get the horns' and more 'keep an eye on Cas 'cause he's got the horn.'

"Literally anything that involves you leaving this house," Dean settles on after a moment of deliberation. Sure, there's plenty of crazy shit for them to do inside, but at least the chances of them getting arrested will be reduced. “I am not bailing any one of you out of jail or calling my brother at ass o’clock to come and defend your sorry asses, ‘cause you decided to participate in some zombie—” Jack makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat and Dean sighs, scrubbing a hand over his day-end stubble, “—sorry, _undead_ -impulsiveness.”

What kind of topsy-turvy, bizarro world is it when Dean’s the sensible one in this family?

The three of them nod. Practically in unison, and Dean has a super bad feeling about this. But up until whatever caused Cas’ condition, dude was thoroughly sensible. _Too_ sensible, in all honesty, so Dean’s hoping that enough of that still exists in there for Dean to make a run to the store.

“Fine,” Dean says to his husband, who looks more like a teenager getting scolded for coming in past curfew than a realtor in his late thirties. “I’ll go get you some food. But then we’re coming up with a plan.”

Cas blinks up at him. Innocent and beguiling and Dean does not trust him for a single second.

To Claire, he says, “You. Keep him here.”

To Jack, he says, “You. Keep _them_ here.”

“Sure,” Jack and Claire respond in unison. It sounds about as convincing as Dean was expecting, which is both reassuring and not.

“I’m serious. Don’t go anywhere.”

Annoyed, Claire snarks, “We heard you the first twenty times.”

_Slight exaggeration, but okay._

Dean grabs his car keys, and shoots one last warning look over his shoulder at his husband and kids. If they had any meat left in the house, Dean would use it to bribe Cas into behaving. “ _Stay here_.” 

Before he can talk himself out of it, he steps outside, slamming the door behind him. He stands there on the porch for a long moment, listening for any comically loud Home Alone-style noises, loosely wondering whether he should’ve dug the old nanny cams out of the attic. 

_Nah. That’s going too far. Cas is an adult, Claire’s almost an adult, and Jack is… Jack. They’ll be fine._

Right?

Yeah fuckin’ right.

***

Of course, when he gets home, with enough raw meat to feed a big cat sanctuary for a month, all three of the fuckers are nowhere to be found.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you got through the last chapter’s vomit scenes then the small amount of gore at the end of this chapter should be a doddle. But I’ll just warn/remind: Cas is ~~a zombie~~ undead, so y’know.

To say that Castiel has spent the vast majority of his thirty-eight years on this earth as somewhat of a quiet ‘nerd’ may be an understatement. 

When he was fourteen, he was given a key to the teacher’s lounge at his school, because — and this is a direct quote — “ _You’re more sensible and reliable than most of the adults at this school, Castiel_.” At sixteen, his parents bought him a pre-owned Mitsubishi Mirage, which he drove for the next eight and a half years until he met Dean. Who labeled his dependable, safe vehicle “miserable to sit in, miserable to drive, miserable to look at, miserable in every imaginable way. Like if Eeyore designed a car.”

Harsh, but probably fair. 

Castiel has been stable and consistent his entire life. If you were to ask anyone who’s known him for any length of time, they’d most likely cite his reliability as his defining trait. 

There are worse things to be, he supposes. Like habitually and regrettably late to the point where friends tell you to be somewhere an entire day early. Or a One Direction fan. 

(Claire went through a _phase_ despite her proclamations to the contrary and Castiel will never be able to listen to the opening notes of ‘Best Song Ever’ without his left eye twitching.)

Unfortunately though, with responsibility comes the weight of expectation. 

People expect you to always be where you say you’re going to be; they expect you to be there when they need you, without realizing that they’re taking advantage or taking you for granted. It’s not always easy to be your own person when others have you so tightly boxed in by their own perceptions of who they think you are.

Breaking free of that is difficult. It’s much easier to tread along that predetermined path than it is to beat your own through the unknown. 

Castiel became a realtor because it was a respectable and steady job, not because of any real passion for it. He’s stayed as one for the same reason. Despite the fact that his boss has about as much charm as a Gila monster and breath twice as bad. 

He and Dean bought a house together in the most picture-perfect, standard suburb they could find within their price range. They decorated it in muted greens and beiges, feng-shui’d in some nice furniture and purchased appliances with excellent efficiency ratings.

It’s nice, and Castiel appreciates his life, he really does, but there’s no denying it’s a little on the dull side. No, maybe dull is the wrong word. _Routine_. He knows Dean feels it too sometimes, when he catches sight of the restlessness behind those green eyes; the longing for a life that doesn’t revolve around doing the dishes and picking up wet towels from the bathroom floor. 

Castiel’s not stupid, nor is he willfully ignorant. He knows that Dean settled down before he was ready because of the circumstances thrust upon them. He had big plans for all the things he and Castiel were going to do together, all the adventures they were going to have, starting with a year-long road trip (in Dean’s much cooler muscle car) all over the U.S.; going to drive-in movies in the middle of fields, seeing the world’s biggest ball of twine, stargazing on the roof of the Impala, just living a little.

Being with Dean made Castiel _want_ to live. Made him want to wander off the beaten path and do something, anything that wasn’t expected. Made him want to experience everything that the world had to offer, because existing with Dean Winchester at your side makes everything worth experiencing, no matter how big or small. 

They had money saved. It was supposed to be an extended honeymoon of sorts, something they’d been planning a long time for. But then Castiel’s twin brother and sister-in-law died. 

Thoroughly dependable Castiel (and by-proxy-by-marriage Dean) was awarded guardianship of Jimmy and Amelia's five-year-old Claire. It wasn’t something Castiel and Jimmy had discussed at length, because obviously they were too young to die. No one thinks they’re going to die in their twenties.

At the time, he and Dean had been married less than six months, together for barely two years, and Castiel wasn't sure how a child was going to fit into their relationship. After all, they were living in their cramped, leased apartment back then, with all of their accumulated money in a savings account earmarked for their roadtrip. 

Castiel never would’ve blamed Dean for walking away (though he would’ve been thoroughly heartbroken). A child wasn’t supposed to be a part of the deal. 

Luckily, Castiel married the right man. Not least because Dean was the one who suggested that they use their honeymoon-slash-roadtrip money as a downpayment on a house, but also because time and again, he’s proven himself to be an amazing husband and father. Even when, instead of wanting to live more in the wake of Jimmy’s death, Castiel retreated into caring for Claire as though it was his sole purpose. Instead of treating every day like it was his last, because shit, it just might be, Castiel played it even _more_ safe. 

As Claire hit her teens, Castiel began to breathe a little easier. He and Dean were wealthier now, much more easily able to save up for a mini road trip and Claire would appreciate it too. They had preliminary plans and began saving vacation days from work. But then, when Claire was fourteen, a friend of Castiel’s from college — Kelly Kline — passed away, and Castiel was named as her guardian of choice for her then-fifteen-year-old son, Jack. 

Saying no was never an option; neither of them even considered it.

Whilst Jack took a little more getting used to, after some minor (attitude) adjustments, he fit right into their offbeat family. Dean taught Jack to drive the year before Claire, he taught him how to change the oil on a car, how to fish, how to cook, how to be an adult. 

It’s mostly taken. But Jack is a sensitive soul. Claire is… well, Claire is Dean twenty years ago. 

“Faster!” she yells from the back seat of the Maserati Castiel is test-driving — well, test-racing, really — down Magic Mountain Parkway, past Mimi’s Cafe and their Roasted Turkey Club that Jack laments as the red signage gets smaller in Castiel’s rearview mirror. The salesman is pinned to the apparently far superior Poltrona Frau leather of the front passenger seat like they’re on Millenium Force at Cedar Point, and he keeps shouting, “Pull over!” as he grips the overhead handle. Which is unnecessarily dramatic. 

Castiel checks the speedometer. 87 MPH.

The speed limit for this stretch of road is 45.

If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, so Castiel puts his foot down on the gas, just a touch, watching the needle tick up to 88, 89, 90, with the kind of bone-deep satisfaction he usually experiences when he files his taxes on January 2nd. 

Castiel takes a corner, hard. The car fishtails but keeps going. 

Claire’s sticking her head out of the rear window like a dog, and Castiel experiences none of his usual concern that she’ll get decapitated by a passing car or telegraph pole. No, instead, he wishes he could be doing the same. 

Why _isn’t_ he doing the same?

“Take the wheel,” he orders the portly salesman — _Tim? Tom? Tony?_ — who turns to gape at him as Castiel weaves the car expertly in and out of other vehicles. Dean would be proud. 

“You’re insane,” Tim-Tom-Tony tells him, mouth quivering around the words. “You have to take us back to the showroom right now or—”

Claire leans forward in her seat, hands on the salesman’s headrest, menacing in a way that doesn’t take years of practice, just an innate ability to be far too scary for a seventeen-year-old. “—Or what? What will you do, huh?”

“Claire,” Castiel scolds. There’s no need to be rude. After all, Tim-Tom-Tony is the helpful one who — after he saw Jack staring at the car with doleful eyes — suggested a test drive. Castiel would have been perfectly content to simply purchase it, but Tim-Tom-Tony insisted they should ‘see what she can do,’ so Castiel feels it’s a little late to be kicking up a stink now. Then an excellent idea eclipses his minor irritation. “Claire, why don’t _you_ take the wheel?”

Claire makes a squealing noise that Castiel has come to understand is a happy one in the teenage-girl language of biting sarcasm and door-slamming. “You mean I can drive?”

A car horn blares as they zoom past, skipping right through a red-lit intersection. Castiel frowns, trying to dredge up a reason why she shouldn’t. 

There was an incident last year involving a pond, Claire’s brand new Ford Fiesta, and an unfortunate family of koi fish. Dean assured anyone who’d listen it would be over his dead body that Claire got another car before she turned thirty. 

He didn’t say anything about _Castiel’s_ dead body. 

Castiel’s about to tell her that she can test-drive this Maserati, and if she doesn’t steer it into a body of water, then she can have Castiel’s old Mazda CX5, but he’s interrupted by the salesman wailing, “You’ll kill us all!” 

Which is perhaps a little unfair. Claire’s not _that_ bad a driver.

  
  


***

It’s dark by the time they pull up outside their house in Castiel’s new Maserati. 

“He’s gonna kill you, you know,” Claire tells him from the back seat, with the relaxed air of someone about to experience some juicy schadenfreude. It’s hard to take her poor choice of words seriously, however, when her hair resembles a nest that a wild bird might have cobbled together in a hurry.

Castiel drums his fingers on the steering wheel. She’s not wrong, despite her laughable hairstyle. Dean ordered them all to stay at home, and the three of them disobeyed that direct order at the earliest opportunity.

They barely waited for the rumble of the Impala’s engine to fade down the street before they were sneaking down the driveway. 

Dean may not actually kill Castiel (can you kill the undead?) but he _will_ give Castiel the silent treatment. Which is almost worse, because Dean Winchester is ‘king of the petty bitches’ (Claire’s terminology) and he _will_ pretend that Castiel doesn’t exist. Like the time Castiel accidentally-on-purpose, passively-aggressively ate the last of the lasagne Dean had been saving. 

However, if there’s anything he’s learned from having kids, it’s how to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. “Out you get.”

“What?” Claire’s reflection glares at him in the rearview mirror. 

“Why?” Jack asks, kicked-puppy-like. 

“Because…” Castiel trails off, trying to come up with an excuse that doesn't sound like he just fumbled it out of his ass on the spot. That’s amateur and unlikely to fool the two teenage experts in the back seat. “I have a happy hour to attend for work.”

There is actually a gathering tonight at a local dive bar, one Castiel would usually steer well clear of, but needs must when your husband is likely furious with your impulsive, undead behavior.

“Bullshit,” Claire snaps. 

“Language,” Castiel scolds, more out of habit than any real concern for her moral fiber. Dean swears as though he’s got a quota to maintain, or like he’s being paid by the curse word, so it feels a little hypocritical to be policing something as relatively harmless as bad language. 

One of the few perks of being a parent, he supposes. Hypocrisy, along with the ever-ready excuse to avoid anything you don’t wish to attend. 

With a sigh, Castiel shifts in the leather seat. Maybe he _should_ go inside? Face the music. Perhaps Dean’s concern for Castiel and his undead situation will outweigh his annoyance at their collective disobedience. Perhaps they can have a repeat of this afternoon in their bedroom, because Castiel would like that very much.

He sees a curtain twitch, and Dean’s furious face appears, backlit by their living room lights. 

Then again, perhaps not. 

Oh, dear. They’ve got maybe thirty seconds. He turns around, resting his forearm atop the passenger seat. “I’ll make you both a deal. You can have whatever you want for dinner, on me, okay? Just tell your father that I’ve gone out for some drinks with work.”

They exchange a glance.

“Can I have a turkey sandwich?” Jack asks.

“Of course,” Castiel answers distractedly, knowing he’s already got them both. 

“What if I want twenty pizzas?” Claire challenges, jutting her chin out.

“Then you can have twenty pizzas,” Castiel tells her, one eye watching the front door opening. 

T-minus fifteen seconds. 

They share another look, and Castiel knows he’s going to pay through the nose for this. “Fine,” Claire says. “We agree to your terms.” 

Within five seconds, the kids are out of the car and halting Dean in the doorway, whilst Castiel makes a break for it, putting the pedal to the metal in his brand new car.

  
  


***

As well as being (viewed as) boring and reliable, Castiel is also rather socially awkward. It’s not often a problem; the only people he _wants_ to interact with are those who know him well. And for his job, he’s perfected the art of a customer service persona, consisting of banal small-talk and frozen-smile politeness that Dean is forever marveling at, because in comparison, he’s rather hot-headed and liable to tell someone — customer or employee — to fuck off. 

In short, Castiel is good at his job. Not great, just good. Consistent. 

Most of the time, he wishes he could be more like Dean and say what he really thinks, but then again, that’s not how you win the middle-class, middle-of-the-road game, is it?

As a result, Castiel never attends happy hour with his colleagues. Alcohol (which has been known to make his tongue loose and sharp) + people he dislikes = disaster for his steady career. 

Though, so far, he’s beginning to wonder why he was worried. 

“What about _him_?” Gabriel says, pointing at the turned back of one of their colleagues. 

Apparently, Castiel’s inner monologue isn’t just appreciated here, it’s required.

“He’s so dense that light actually bends around him,” Castiel says, offhand. “I once overheard him insist with wholehearted sincerity that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.”

Gabriel’s raucous laughter tops out over the classic rock background music. Anna nearly chokes on her mouthful of rosé. 

Pint glass raised to his lips, Castiel glances around at the dozen or so employees of Elysian Plains Realty spread across a couple of the high tables, smug and mostly unbearable in the way that realtors have to be if they want to progress past being merely good at their job. 

In Castiel's experience, Glengarry Glen Ross is less an exaggerated, fictional portrayal, and more a documentary.

Laughter dying down, Gabriel leans over the sticky table with a mischievous grin on his face. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding yourself away from us, Castiel! Along with such a bitchy attitude too. You’re always so damned polite and _nice_. It’s good to see that there’s a little more substance behind the stoic professionalism.”

Anna, who is probably the most decent person at EPR and therefore someone Castiel has spoken to beyond a quick exchanging of pleasantries, changes the subject. “Well, _I_ can’t believe you just went out and bought yourself a Maserati.”

“Mmm,” Castiel agrees, draining the rest of his beer. “I’ve been wanting one ever since an hour ago.” 

Anna frowns a little and begins to open her mouth to respond, but Gabriel cuts her off. “Good for you, pretty-boy! Who _doesn’t_ want one of those babies? Hell, If Kali would let me,” he shakes his head, whistling lowly, “I’d be out there driving around in my midlife crisis for all to see!”

Is this what a midlife crisis feels like? Castiel may have the car, but he has no desire for a twenty-something twink with fewer brain cells than birthdays under his belt. All he wants is Dean. And maybe some shots. And more ground beef.

“Do they serve snacks here?” Castiel asks, straightening up a little, trying to see past the bodies to the bar. 

Gabriel pushes himself backward off the stool he’s been straddling. “I’ll find out for you while I get us some shots.”

Anna groans.

“Anything in particular you want? Nuts? Onion rings?” Gabriel makes a dirty gesture, which Castiel pointedly ignores. 

“Ask if they have any raw meat they use in the burgers.” Remembering his manners at the last second, he adds, “Please?”

Gabriel laughs. “Raw, meat eh? Speaking of, the latest member of the Elysian family has been staring at you all night.” He jerks his chin toward the other end of the bar, where Balthazar is leaning on his elbows against the wood, appearing for all the world as though he’s scouting for someone to take home to something he most likely calls a ‘shag pad.’ “I think he likes you.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees on a weary sigh. “You may be right. He came to my house earlier and gave me some lavender.”

“Ooooh, an office scandal,” Gabriel crows. “Cassie, you dog! Lavender today, fucking at a show home tomorrow.”

Castiel allows his face to adequately express how he feels about that. 

Gabriel laughs again. “I suppose if _I_ had Dean Winchester waiting for me at home, I wouldn’t be tempted to stray either. I also wouldn’t be hanging out at a dive bar with the assholes I work with. But lucky for us you are!” And with that he’s gone, shouldering his way through the crowd, clapping people on the shoulders or the ass, cracking jokes the whole way.

It’s a good point. Why _is_ he here when he could be at home with Dean? In bed?

He’s just thinking about making his excuses when Anna touches him gently on the forearm. “Are you alright, Castiel? I know you were unwell earlier.”

“I feel amazing,” he answers honestly, glancing down at the bandaid across the heel of his palm. He picks at the edges, wondering. It doesn’t feel tight anymore, and as he pulls the bandaid up and away, it becomes apparent why. His skin has knitted back together, like he didn’t slice himself open on a pair of bathroom scissors a few hours ago. There’s no scar, no pink edges. It’s good as new. 

How very interesting. 

Is this the work of the devil? Castiel doubts that old reprobate would have anything to do with this. Is he a corporeal ghost? He doesn’t feel like one. He doesn’t feel dead or undead at all. Zombies in all the films he’s seen lack a lot of mental faculties that Castiel thankfully still seems to possess. And he’s not rotting or falling to pieces. 

He turns his hand over, examining his skin. There’s no discoloration, no marks, nothing. He curls his hand into a fist before fanning his fingers back out again. 

Everything’s normal. And yet, he has no heartbeat, no pulse, no blood. And he’s hungry. 

Anna is watching him closely, her pretty features creased in concern. “Are you sure?”

He nods, distractedly. Gabriel is almost back to their table with what looks like two large boards of shots. Dean has always cited getting drunk as a good method for alleviating problems (whilst simultaneously creating new ones), so Castiel is willing to give it a go. 

“Hello, my party people!” Gabriel slides one of the wooden paddle boards in front of Castiel and Anna, and the other in front of himself. “No raw meat, I’m afraid, but I’m sure Dean will give you some when you get home, am I right?”

“You’re disgusting,” Anna tells him, dainty nose wrinkled.

Gabriel rubs his hands together. “Why, thank you. Now, Cassie, I challenge you to down all of those shots. If you’re like this half-cut, I can’t wait to see you toasted!”

Castiel understands maybe forty percent of what Gabriel’s just said, but he got the shot part. “Alright,” he says, picking up the first of the little glasses containing suspiciously colored liquid. He tilts his head and slings the alcohol back. 

It tastes like fruity acetone.

He continues along the line, throwing them back, one after another. He turns each miniature glass upside down in succession. 

Across the table, Gabriel grins, delighted and with the unnatural blue of E-numbered alcohol staining his mouth. “Holy shit, Castiel!” he exclaims in the lull between songs. 

Castiel sits there, waiting for something to happen. Other than a pleasant warmth, there’s nothing. A side effect of not having blood, he supposes, is a distinct lack of a blood-alcohol level. 

There must be a downside to this undead business, but so far, he’s not finding one. 

Perhaps this is the universe telling him to stop overthinking things and start enjoying them, and really, who is he to challenge the universe? 

“I think I would like some more shots,” he announces to the small crowd that they attracted during Castiel’s rapid-fire shot drinking.

Gabriel gapes for a long moment, jaw hanging. “You’re fun! Why didn’t you tell me that you’re fun, Castiel? More shots, yes! Let’s get more shots for our pal Cassie here!”

Amidst the hubbub, the opening beat of a song Castiel listened to nonstop in his twenties comes over the speakers, and he flings himself up and out of his seat. “Ohhh, I love this song. I’m going to dance.”

He weaves between the bodies to the bar’s dance area, such as it is. There’s a scattering of other couples dancing close together, moving their bodies sensually with the beat, and Castiel briefly contemplates calling Dean, because he loves this song too, and they could be dancing that indecently as well. 

Either being a zombie — undead — comes with summoning powers or the universe really likes him today, because when he turns around to demand somebody call Dean, he comes face to face with the man himself. He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt to Castiel’s Faith No More one, like they’re from warring factions, and whilst he’s not their biggest fan usually, he’s growing a new appreciation for Plant and co., due to the tight fit of their shirt over Dean’s biceps. 

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says, and it’s faux-casual, green eyes glittering underneath curled lashes in the low light.

He smells so good. Like leather and oil and hard work, and has Castiel mentioned Dean’s hands? Rough and thick-fingered with all the manual labor he does on a daily basis. He’s strong and rugged, but also beautiful and big-hearted. 

And he’s all Castiel’s.

“What part of ‘stay at home’ did you not understand?” Dean asks sternly, leaning in close to be heard over the music.

So he’s still furious then.

“I just came out for a few drinks with the people from work,” Castiel defends. He points at the table where Gabriel and the others are watching. A smirk spreads across Gabriel’s face as he waves back with a saucy wiggle of his fingers. 

“You hate the people from work.”

“Not all of them, and not all of the time.”

“No,” Dean concedes with a sigh, and Castiel loosely wonders if he’d be amenable to a blowjob in the bathroom. “Look, let’s just go home.”

“I don’t want to. Dance with me."

"Cas, I really don't think—"

"Come on," Castiel tugs at Dean's wrist. Drawing him in close, Castiel puts his mouth to Dean's ear. Murmurs hotly, "Remember that time in San Francisco?”

Judging by the way Dean’s whole body stiffens, eyes glazing over, oh, yes, he remembers.

Victorious, Castiel presses a kiss to his husband’s cheek. "Dance with me.” 

Castiel turns his back to Dean and starts moving, swaying his hips in time with the beat, finding the rhythm with ease and allowing himself to relax into it. He feels the fingers of Dean’s hand curve over the jut of his hip bone, pulling him in closer, pressing himself all the way up against Castiel’s spine. Castiel lets his head fall back to rest on Dean’s shoulder. 

In his own bubble of sensation and sound, Castiel nuzzles at Dean’s neck, feels his husband shiver in response, so he pushes his ass back into the cradle of Dean’s hips, revels in the way Dean’s hand tightens briefly, possessively. Dean’s an excellent dancer and whilst they weren’t thrillseekers in their dating days, they did spend some of their earlier dates in clubs, getting themselves worked up and sweat-soaked on dance floors, before rushing home — or to Dean’s car. It used to be a kind of foreplay for them, and Castiel’s enjoying this reenactment of years gone by, when it felt like the world was theirs.

Dean’s solid and warm behind him, smelling good and looking better, and Castiel sighs happily. After the uncertainty of the day, this is something familiar, something easy for them both. 

Castiel feels Dean’s nose graze the curve of his ear, the fine hairs behind it, as they move together smoothly, sinuously. He can feel eyes from across the bar on them, and usually, it would have his cheeks flaming with embarrassment, but now, it just spurs him on. He reaches both arms over his head, hooking one around Dean’s neck. He traces his free hand down Dean’s arm, reaching for Dean’s hand over his hip and pulling it so that it rests low on his stomach. 

“Cas,” Dean breathes, hot and heavy. He drags his lips against Castiel’s jaw. “Fuck.”

“Mmm,” Castiel agrees. There’s a pleasant warmth settling in his gut, building in his veins, this low, thrumming desire.

He doesn’t miss the way Dean’s chest expands against his back as his husband takes a deep, steadying breath, most likely trying not to get carried away here in this sea of people. 

Castiel has no such qualms, and the freedom of not caring is intoxicating. He feels invincible, and hungry, and horny, and he wants it all. _Right now_. 

He’s about to tell his husband as much, about to demand that they go to a bathroom stall, where Dean will bend over for him, let Castiel slide right inside, the tight clutch of Dean’s body around him, the feeling of one another driving them both to distraction, but then Dean murmurs against Castiel’s temple, "So you bought a car, huh?" 

The low rumble of Dean’s voice against Castiel's skin makes his already hard cock twitch. 

“Yes,” Castiel confirms, seeing the attempt at slowing things down for what it is. He’s determined not to let it work though. Dean’s dick is a searing line of hardness and heat, even through two sets of fabric, and Castiel grinds back against him shamelessly. “And I didn’t even consult Consumer Reports.”

Dean’s laugh is quiet, hitched on a small moan. “I’m proud of you, Cas.”

Castiel turns his head enough to glance up the inch or so in height difference through his lashes. “Really? I thought you’d be furious.”

It’s apparent that Dean’s picking his words carefully. “Worried? Yes. Furious? No. Claire came in with hurricane-fresh hair and Jack looked as deer-in-the-headlights as I’ve ever seen him. Once I stopped laughing, they told me what I’m assuming is a truncated version of what happened, and I— Cas—” he cuts himself off. Regroups. “Whatever’s going on with you is bad, right? I know it might feel good or whatever, and I’m not denying that the way you’re grinding up against me right now is all kinds of amazing, and you bought a freakin’ sports car that’s so renowned for being unreliable that it’ll keep my shop open for years to come, but man. It’s scaring the shit outta me.”

Castiel can understand that, but. “You always wanted me to be fun, didn’t you? When we got together, you were forever trying to drag me to ‘fun’ things, broaden horizons or whatever it was you said. Well, I’m fun now. It might be fourteen years too late, but here I am.”

Dean pulls away and Castiel immediately mourns the loss of all that muscle and warmth. He turns to face his husband, because apparently this is an argument they need to be having instead of sex. 

Dean’s eyes are dark and wet, his mouth pressed into a narrow line. “I wanted you to know _how_ to have fun, Cas. But more than that, I wanted _you_. Party animal or bee lover. Both, whatever. That hasn’t changed. If you wanna enjoy things, then holy hell am I on board, but can we at least figure out what’s causing all this first? Cure you and then take it from there?”

It’s not the sticking point Castiel had been expecting. “Cure me?” he repeats through numb lips. “What if I don’t want to be ‘cured’? What if this isn’t something that necessitates a cure?”

“Were you not there when you ate an entire carton of raw beef? Did I hallucinate that shit? Or when our daughter — who admittedly is not a doctor — diagnosed you with a serious case of the deads?”

Castiel sniffs. “Yesterday you told me that you barely trusted Claire not to lose the end of the Scotch tape, and now you simply _believe her_ on something like this?"

"She’s seen more zombie movies than Leo DiCaprio has Oscar snubs, but no, I'm not willing to take her opinion at face value. Which is why we need to speak to someone, Cas. Figure shit out."

"We don’t _need_ to do anything, Dean.” Then, because marriage is nothing if not a series of compromises, he adds, “Not right now at least."

A muscle in Dean’s jaw tics. “Damn it, Cas.” 

It’s then that Castiel catches an overpowering, unpleasant scent — something by Abercrombie, no doubt — layering over the bar smell of sweat and booze.

It’s Balthazar, with his blown-out hairstyle and low V-neck that's bordering on indecent.

Oh, wonderful. Because that’s all this night needs. 

“Is there a problem?” Balthazar asks with just the right level of smarm, and Castiel may have been polite before, but he’s since discovered that he’s undead and potentially immortal, which, if nothing else, has put a few things into perspective.

“Oh, God, not you,” Dean mutters.

Balthazar smiles, oil on water. “Look Dean — that is your name, correct? Obviously, you’re upset. But if Cassie doesn’t want to go with you—”

To Dean’s credit, he’s not willing to bear Balthazar’s nonsense either. “Fuck off, Balthazar.” To Castiel, he says, “Cas…”

“Life should be _fun_ , Dean. You used to be fun.”

“He wants to have fun, Dean,” Balthazar interjects. 

“—And I used to be fun,” Dean says through the grit of his teeth, not sparing Balthazar a glance. “I heard him, thanks.”

Balthazar steps up close to Dean, putting himself in front of Castiel. He puffs his chest out, which is ridiculous, because Dean has a good few inches of height and a decent amount of muscle on him. Having seen Dean fight, and also the way Balthazar struggles to carry the rider signs from the trunk of his car to the lawn of a recently sold property, Castiel knows who his money is on if this does turn into a brawl. 

A cheap thrill zips through him at the thought. Something primal in him is screaming _fight fight fuck fight,_ and it’s heating his blood, making him hungry all over again. 

Frustrated, Dean tries, “Cas—”

Castiel opens his mouth to reply, but Balthazar cuts him off. “Then maybe you should go.”

“You know, fifteen years ago, I would’ve punched you right in your smug fucking face,” Dean tells Balthazar. “But now I have a family, a career, a _husband_. I’m not gonna be the guy who gets into bar fights.”

“Why not? Scared you might lose?”

This is completely juvenile and extremely hot and Castiel is absolutely here for it.

Dean looks past Balthazar to Castiel. “Cas, what does your newfound fun-ness have to say about me laying this dick out?”

Castiel lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I have no objections.”

Dean barely waits for Castiel to finish his sentence before his knuckles are connecting with Balthazar’s jaw. The impact sends Balthazar stumbling backward a couple of steps, until his feet trip him up and he falls onto his ass rather ungracefully. 

Barely anyone notices; just some of the nearby dancing couples, who move out of the way rather than help. Their apathy is actually beneficial in this situation, even as Castiel resents them for it. 

“I’ll see you at home, Cas. If you decide to come home." With that cutting and petulant remark, Dean’s shouldering his way through the crowd, and by the time Castiel pulls himself together enough to form a response, the back of Dean’s Led Zeppelin shirt is halfway out the door. 

  
  


***

Castiel is hungry. 

He’s eaten through all the meat Dean bought last night, but each mouthful became increasingly less satisfying than the last. 

He’s itchy and agitated, pulled in different directions. He wants to eat, wants to go upstairs and wake up his sleeping husband with his mouth around Dean’s dick, wants to go swimming in the ocean, wants to throw all their stuff in a car and finally go on that road trip.

To reconcile all of these conflicting feelings, he instead gardens. It relaxes him, and since he apparently doesn’t need sleep anymore, it’s almost like pressing the sleep-equivalent reset button. 

As soon as Dean wakes up, Castiel is going to apologize to him. He acted ridiculously last night, especially as Dean was only concerned about him and his newfound status. Castiel would be exactly the same if the situation was reversed. It’s just hard to remember that through the low, thick throb of want permeating every atom and fiber of his being. 

He digs the hand fork into the flower bed, leaving the handle standing upright. He removes his thick gardening gloves, dropping them onto the grass next to his knees. 

Maybe he could make Dean some breakfast by way of apology? The kids would appreciate it too. Some fresh eggs, bacon, juice. They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and it’s something Castiel was delighted to find accurate with Dean after their first fight.

Behind Castiel, the rear gate squeaks on its hinges, and Castiel glances over his shoulder to see who’s intruding on the zen he’s managed to curate over the last couple of hours.

Balthazar. 

“Oh goody,” Castiel says, squeezing as much disdain as he can into three syllables. “It’s you.” He climbs to his feet, brushing soil off of his pants. “What do you want?”

Balthazar pushes a pair of aviators up his head into his hair, even though it’s barely eight a.m. and therefore pretentious to be wearing sunglasses. “You’re looking particularly radiant today,” he says.

Castiel isn’t. He’s dressed in holey sweatpants and one of Dean’s old button-downs (minus three buttons), covered in soil and grit and sweat.

Eager to get this over and done with so he can focus on cooking breakfast for his family, Castiel repeats himself. “What do you want?”

Balthazar takes a step toward him. Castiel stands his ground. “I just wanted to make sure that you were all right.”

“Because I didn’t want to have sex with you last night after Dean punched you? Or before he punched you, come to think of it.” Castiel turns away, pretending to be busy with his hydrangea, hoping that Balthazar will take the not-so-subtle hint. “I’m fine.”

Still, Balthazar persists. “Look, there’s no point in denying this chemistry between us. I felt it last night when you helped me up, instead of going after that brutish husband of yours.”

“Chemistry?” Castiel asks incredulously, catching sight of Balthazar moving in his periphery. “We’ve worked together for two weeks. And last night is probably the most we’ve ever said to each other. We’re colleagues. There’s no chemistry. I helped you up because it was the nice thing to do. Then you propositioned me. Repeatedly. Lesson learned.” He wishes he had some shears handy in order to really drive his point home.

“I brought you flowers.”

“So has 1-800-Flowers, but they’re not on my to-fuck list, either.”

Balthazar tilts his head back on a laugh so forced that Castiel is genuinely worried he’s going to pop a vein. “Handsome _and_ funny.”

“Handsome and funny and _married_ ,” Castiel stresses as he faces Balthazar again. 

“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Castiel shudders. Dear God, this conversation is as tiresome as passing a kidney stone; it's taking forever and it's unnecessarily painful. "Is that supposed to entice me?" he asks, wondering precisely when he lost control of this conversation. He belatedly realizes that it was at the start, right when he said ‘what do you want’ rather than ‘fuck off.’ "Even if I was interested — and that’s a _big_ if — do you honestly believe that I would let you do this right here and right now, with my husband asleep upstairs?"

"Why don't we find out?" Balthazar reaches for Castiel’s waist in an attempt to draw him in closer. 

Castiel twists out of Balthazar's grasp. "Let's not, and say we never would."

Outside of terrible sitcoms and movies where the plot revolves around this sort of thing, Castiel didn’t believe that these kinds of pigheaded sex pests actually existed. He's less than pleased to be proven wrong.

This isn't a ‘no means yes’ type situation. This is a no means _fuck no_.

Perhaps Castiel’s lack of enthusiasm is finally getting to Balthazar, because he smiles through his teeth in a rather disingenuous way and says, “How about this? We have some fun. You said last night that you’re all about fun. And I won’t say anything to your boring husband. Or, I could always go in there right now and tell Dean that we screwed last night in my Beemer. Your choice.” 

Wow. 

Normally, Castiel would find some excuse to escape, but this presumptuous, arrogant assbutt has come to _his_ house, _his_ garden, and insulted _his_ husband. 

“Well, when you put it like that…” Castiel trails off, smiling crookedly. “Your unwillingness to take no for an answer has made me feel sexy and desirable.”

Plus, he is _really_ hungry.

Balthazar’s expression shifts, genuine surprise flitting across his features. “Oh, really?”

“Really,” Castiel asserts, bending at the waist to pick up the hand fork. He moves quickly, pivoting on the ball of his foot and burying the implement deep into Balthazar’s chest in one fluid motion.

“Holy shit!” Balthazar’s unfocussed gaze drops down as Castiel releases the handle. He looks back up at Castiel, staggering a couple of steps away as red bleeds through his brilliantly white shirt. “You forked me!”

“Mm,” Castiel agrees. “Just like you wanted. Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

***

Castiel doesn’t end up cooking breakfast for Dean and the kids, because he’s too busy eating his own. By the time Dean comes downstairs, Castiel is on his hands and knees on the grass, already nose-deep in Balthazar’s intestines. Apparently, human meat is substantially more filling than ground beef. Who knew?

Standing barefoot on the patio flagstones in nothing but his loose-fitting pajama pants, Dean gapes. “ _Cas?_ ”

Balthazar’s blood drying in the lines of his skin, around his mouth, Castiel looks up at his husband. 

Oh. 

Admittedly, this does look bad. "So, we probably need to talk?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend to dedicate as much of this story as I have so far to blow jobs, but here we are.

Anyone whose husband commits murder is going to have issues. But when your brother is a lawyer and the neighbors on either side of you are the sheriff of Santa Clarita and an FBI agent respectively? That’s more than issues. That’s a whole goddamn subscription.

Partly because the aforementioned sheriff likes to pop in unannounced to check in on the kids, but mostly because Jody Mills is — in the words of Tom Keifer from ‘80s hair band Cinderella — _nobody’s fool, never again, no no_.

It’s comedy-of-errors unfortunate then, that she chooses today of all days to pay them an early morning visit, whilst Cas is still rinsing a real estate douchebag’s blood off his hands and Dean is on the verge of needing a paper bag to hyperventilate into.

Cas — the man who, after being _under_ charged by ninety-three cents in a bath bomb shop, went back in to make the cashier aware of and then rectify the error — has murdered one of his colleagues. Not merely murdered, but eviscerated him in a way that makes Jack the Ripper seem tame. 

In fairness to Cas, Balthazar was a complete asshole, and whilst Dean's not usually one to victim blame, the fuckface had it coming.

Still, it's an added stress they could've done without. Like a car that won’t start when you’re in a hurry for something, or when McDonald’s runs out of those little sauce packets. 

Dean eyes the bottle of Listerine next to the kitchen sink. He’s already forced Cas to rinse his mouth with the blue liquid three times, like a puritanical parent whose kid has just used a bad word. Cas is just lucky that Dean didn’t stick a whole bar of soap in there, because on the list of things he never wanted to see his husband do, right up there alongside sitting on another man’s cock, was eating another man’s small intestine. Which is apparently quite chewy. Like calamari.

Dean shudders. 

This is not where he imagined his life would be just a short twenty-four hours ago. 

Jody calls out to them from the doorway, wiping her no-doubt-already-squeaky-clean boots on their welcome mat. Dean could go out there, maybe head her off, ask her to come back later, but one thing he and Jack do have in common is the inability to lie. For Jack, it’s because he flat-out refuses to; for Dean, it’s because he’s kinda bad at it. Mostly around women, because he’s lied passably enough to his brother before. But Jody? Nah. She’ll take one look at him and just _know_ Cas is a zombie and has the partially digested remains of a realtor in his stomach. 

Dean’s just glad he had the foresight to bundle the kids off to school with cold pizza and some rushed, half-baked excuse about Cas being naked in the kitchen. Luckily for him, their disgust at the mere idea of an unclothed parental unit outweighed their curiosity and general need to know everything that goes on in this house.

Jody’s radio crackles, and Cas might not have a heartbeat anymore, but that’s absolutely _fine_ because Dean’s heart is picking up the slack by pounding hard enough for the two of them. 

They hear Jody’s voice at the other end of the hallway. There’s maybe thirty steps between the front door and the kitchen, and Jody’s gotta be a good six in, probably leaning on the banister, shouting up the stairs. “Dean! Castiel!” 

Dean shoots a panicked glance at his husband. Who seems a little too serene, considering this situation has the potential to end with Cas in cuffs (and not in a kinky way). 

“You wanna maybe clean up a little bit faster?” Dean asks in a harsh whisper, not at all right on the edge of hysteria. “I mean, it’s only the sheriff here to check up on us and make sure that there are no dead bodies on our lawn, and oh darn, it seems like there are!”

Lather between his fingers, Cas raises an eyebrow. “You need to calm down. Have you had a coffee yet? Perhaps you should have something to eat. You do get rather ‘hangry’—” He has the actual gall to finger-quote with blood-and-soap-pink hands. “—if you don’t eat.”

Panic (and possibly blood sugar) spiking, Dean closes the distance between himself and Cas. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me right now, Cas,” he hisses. “You just murdered a man because you were hungry!”

“No,” Cas corrects with all the zen of a yoga teacher, washing the soap off his hands. “I murdered a man because he was an asshole. I _ate_ him because I was hungry.”

_Semantics._

“Great,” Dean mutters. “Be sure to make that differentiation to your defense lawyer when Jody arrests you.”

He’s not freaking out, _he’s not_ , except for where he’s absolutely freaking the fuck out, because finding out that your husband eats people is a therapy bill waiting to happen. Finding out that your husband eats people twenty minutes before your sheriff neighbor is presented with the same information? Well, that’s a recipe for conjugal visits and a lifetime of laying horizontally on couches, staring at inkblots.

They haven’t even had a chance to talk about this shit yet, and Dean can’t lose Cas, he just _can’t_. (And certainly not before he’s had the opportunity to gloat and say, _‘I told you that you should have stayed home yesterday.’_ It’s so rare that Dean is actually right about stuff in their marriage, he’s not gonna let this opportunity pass him by, cannibal zombie or not.) 

So, yeah. Cas going to jail? Not an option. 

There’s not many things in this life that Dean is scared of: flying, somebody eating the last slice of pepperoni pizza, and losing Cas and/or the kids. 

Hands wet but clean, Cas begins work on the buttons of the old shirt of Dean’s he’s wearing. Out in the hallway, there’s another reminder of Jody’s approach in the creak of a floorboard that Dean’s been promising to fix for six months.

“Sit on the counter,” Cas orders, slipping the bloodied shirt down his arms. Luckily, it seems to have caught the worst of his breakfast mess, and if this is gonna be a regular thing (holy fuck, Dean hopes not), they’ll have to get Cas a bib. 

Something cutesy, like ‘messy pup’ with a picture of a dog underneath.

“Sit on the counter,” his mild-mannered husband repeats in a stern tone that makes Dean shiver all the way to his dick.

_So not the fucking time, dammit._

Dean jerks into action, boosting himself up onto the kitchen island counter opposite Cas and their window overlooking the garden and Balthazar’s remains. 

Cas looks over his shoulder out the window, then back at Dean. “Scoot to the right a little.”

Dean does as he’s told, because now doesn’t strike him as the right time to be making objections.

“Dean, Cas!” Jody’s voice is closer now, maybe a couple of steps outside the kitchen door. 

_Yep, definitely not the right time._

Dean’s pulse is racing like it’s got a 40-1 bet riding on it, accelerating hard when Cas tells him to “lift up” as he tugs at Dean’s pajama pants.

_“What?”_

Cas just arches an eyebrow, and yeah, Dean does as he’s damn well told again, bracing his weight on his palms behind him on the countertop and lifting his ass.

Cas curls his fingers into the waistband of Dean’s pants and yanks them down around his knees, letting them fall the rest of the way to the floor. Dean squeaks, then squeaks again when his bare ass touches down on the cold laminate worktop.

Wasting no time, Cas steps between Dean’s spread thighs, curling one still-damp hand around Dean’s dick and sliding the other up Dean’s neck, dragging Dean down for a kiss, crushing their mouths together. 

Behind them, the kitchen door swings open. 

“Dean, Ca—oh,” Jody’s footsteps halt, and she’s most likely getting an eyeful right now. Not of Cas, of course; both he and the mess he made outside are (hopefully) shielded from view by Dean’s body, but Dean’s ass and back are bearing the full brunt of Jody’s laserbeam stare. “You’re busy. I’ll come back later.”

Cas detaches his mouth from Dean’s, but keeps jacking Dean’s dick slowly, bringing it to full hardness in his talented hand. He peeks around Dean. “Everything okay, sheriff?”

_Holy shit, add an exhibitionism kink to the list of undead side effects._

Between this and the dancing last night, Dean’s seriously wondering if Cas has been holding out on him all these years. Sure, when they were younger, they used to dry hump under the pretense of dancing, but whatever the fuck _that_ was last night at the bar? Dean got the distinct impression that Cas would’ve been totally cool with dragging Dean into the bathroom and fucking him over the sinks. Which is certainly not something they ever did back in the day. 

(And something he should not be thinking about right now, not as Cas twists on the upstroke, making Dean squirm and fight to keep a moan trapped in his throat.)

There’s a smile in Jody’s voice when she replies, “Oh, my morning just got infinitely better thanks to you. Don’t worry, I’ll call back later.”

Dean holds his breath, waiting to hear the tell-tale thud of their front door. It comes about twenty seconds later. 

Cas looks up at him through his sooty lashes, still stroking Dean’s dick. “I told you everything would be okay.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees on a shaky exhale, mouth slack. “You did. Now all we have to do is dispose of a body in the nation’s most populous state without being discovered. Easy fuckin’ peasy.”

Cas hums, and then he’s ducking his head and taking Dean’s cock into the warm wetness of his mouth. 

_Oh, fuck._

Before his upstairs brain has a chance to catch up, one of Dean’s hands goes to Cas’ hair automatically, not pushing, just holding on, fingers slipping through the strands. Cas draws back up and off, licking a stripe up the underside of Dean’s cock, and Dean loves that mouth, has never been able to take his eyes off the pink plushness of it, especially not when they do this. But... “Cas, we should stop.”

Fingers curled around the base of Dean’s cock, all faux-innocent but genuinely irresistible, Cas asks, “Do you _want_ to stop?”

Dean pointedly glances down at his slut-red dick in Cas’ fist. “Clearly not, but—”

Cas squeezes, punching the air out of Dean. “Stop overthinking this.”

Which is _hilarious_ , coming from the man who spends a good twenty minutes per weekly grocery shop trying to decide between Heinz or French’s ketchup. 

(Dean has a theory that the kids drink that shit like water or something, because whenever he comes to use it, the bottle is _always_ empty.) 

This Cas though, this Cas is decisive and determined to have his way. Who is Dean to refuse? Balthazar is still gonna be dead on their lawn in ten minutes. In the grand scheme of things, a blow job is hardly going to make a difference. 

“You'd better not make my dick your dessert."

With a completely straight face, Cas replies, "Do you want me to make a joke about cream?"

Dean’s only available response is a moan as his dick is engulfed in that fucking perfect wet heat again, more of his cock slipping between Cas’ plush lips in a slick, wet glide. Cas hollows his cheeks, sucking hard, watching Dean with filthy-hot want and a smile in his dark eyes, and god _damn_ , it’s a special kind of hot. Dean squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he could roll his hips up and fuck himself further into Cas’ mouth, but he can’t get the leverage, not with the way Cas’ fingers fan out over Dean’s thighs, hot like burning and pinning him in place.

This is not who they are. They’re not spontaneous like this; their sex is carefully planned and managed, squeezed in around their busy schedules, the kids, and endless fucking community events. Blow jobs in the kitchen was never an option on the table, and if it was? Dean would’ve been at least a little concerned about the... sanitary-ness(?) of it, but now that it’s actually happening? Kitchen blow jobs are _fantastic_. Even though, if he were to open his eyes, he would be able to see Balthazar’s bloody smear on the lawn over Cas’ bare shoulder. But that’s easy to ignore when he can lose himself in the slick glide of Cas’ mouth instead.

The sharp point of Cas’ canine catches on the sensitive head of Dean’s dick. A hot shot of adrenaline ricochets up his spine, and Dean gasps, glaring down at his husband, whose lips are curved in a smile as he licks Dean’s cock like a lollipop.

“You’re an asshole,” Dean tells him. “That shit ain’t funny, Cas.”

One of Cas’ palms leaves Dean’s thigh in favor of wrapping itself around Dean’s dick again, spit and precome slicking the way some, but it’s still rough friction, and Dean makes a noise he’s not entirely proud of. 

Cas grins up at him, a predatory glint in his eye. “It’s a little funny.”

Dean tightens his grip on Cas’ hair, trying to make Cas go where he wants him like Cas did to him yesterday, but his husband is a bigger tease than Dean’ll ever be, and instead, turns his head so that Dean’s dick smears a trail of sticky precome across his cheek. “Cas, c’mon.”

“You like it,” Cas says, right as Dean’s cock pulses out another fresh blurt of precome. He moves his head slightly, so that Dean can paint over his mouth with the tacky fluid. “You like the thrill of it, the danger.” He sucks the crown of Dean’s dick past his lips, tonguing the slit before he pulls away again with a slick pop.

_Fucking tease._

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Cas demands, licking over the frenulum, watching Dean through his thick eyelashes. 

Holy shit, Cas is a fucking vamp. And not the blood-sucking variety either.

_Nope, just the dick-sucking kind._

“Cas…”

“Tell me.”

Jesus H. Christ. They have a pretty equal relationship in the bedroom. Both of them are givers and takers, but with this new super dommy Cas, Dean is beginning to think he might be the bottomiest bottom to ever bottom, ‘cause _fuck_. 

Whatever undead-related crap is going on with Cas has caused his usual inhibitions to fall away, leaving Dean with the man Cas might’ve been if he wasn’t such a damn good boy. Murder aside — or not, actually, because godfuckingdammit, they _will_ talk about this shit, just _later_ — Dean’s completely on board with this. 

He deliberately doesn’t cast his eyes out to the garden. 

“You’re not wrong,” Dean admits, a fine tremor in his bones. “It’s like shark diving with a paper cut or taking a honey bath before you go for a hike in the woods.” 

Cas takes Dean back in like a reward, tongue sliding along the underside of his dick, and Dean can’t help the strangled groan he lets out when Cas lets him nudge towards his throat, swallowing around him, throat constricting just _fucking right_. 

Dean rushes out, “Cas, please. Pleasepleaseplease,” as his husband begins to suck in earnest, the air growing thick with dirty, slick sounds. He tilts his head back when his cockhead tips down Cas’ throat, right past his apparently non-existent gag reflex. “Oh, fuck. Cas.” Dean’s arm is trembling, struggling to hold up his weight. 

Pulse hammering, Dean pitches his hips up barely an inch, trying to get more, deeper, _please Cas, fuck._ He’s close, _so goddamn close_ , when Cas pulls off his dick again, his eyes dark and glassy, and Dean wants to yell his frustration. But it’s hard (heh) to be mad when Dean’s treated to the sight of Cas hurriedly shoving his sweatpants down around his thighs, before he pushes between the spread of Dean’s thighs, aligning their hips and dicks.

Hand falling from Cas’ head to his shoulder, Dean hooks his left leg around Cas’ waist as their bodies grind together, the rock-hard velvet of Cas’ dick rubbing slick over Dean’s. Cocks pressed together, Cas wraps his hand around the both of them as best he can, and Dean whines low in his throat, hips stuttering, fucking his cock into the meat of Cas' palm. 

“Shit,” Dean whimpers as Cas squeezes his fist tight, the weight of his husband’s body half-pinning him to the counter, so that Dean can’t do anything but pull him in closer. The friction is delicious and Dean’s breath skitters, heel skidding through the sweat pooling at the base of Cas’ spine. 

Between Cas’ lips pressed deep against Dean’s pulse and the tug of Cas’ hand on his cock, Dean’s close again. The air between them is hot and wet, thick with the musky, salty scent of them together. Cas strokes them hard and fast, Dean’s focus narrowed to the fevered, frantic slap of skin on skin interspersed with their desperate pants and gasps for air. “Cas. ‘m close.”

Sounds are spilling out of Cas now, words too. Filthy and moist, breathed out against the hollow of Dean’s throat, “Dean, fuck. You’re so— You’re so gorgeous. And mine. All mine.”

Fingernails digging crescents into Cas’ shoulder, Dean moans, “Yours, Cas. For as long as you don’t eat me.”

Cas huffs a laugh, his breath washing hot over the sweat-chill of Dean’s skin, making him shiver. Cas’ response is thick and slurry, even as they’re both straining toward their orgasm, hips rolling together. “If you don’t start unloading the dishwasher — _fuck_ — when it’s done then I make no promises.”

Perversely, it’s kinda hot, the domestic and dangerous interlaced, and it has Dean’s muscles winding into knots, sweat prickling at the back of his neck, this wild, crazy feeling like he’s about to come outta his skin. 

Dean manages a hitch of breath, a tightening of his hold on Cas’ shoulder as a warning before he’s jerking, whole body tensing, cock spurting over Cas’ fist, between their bodies. He lets out an agonized groan, right as Cas follows him over, coming in long wet streaks, mouth smeared against Dean’s throat, the low hum of a growl caught in his own. 

Dean’s supporting arm finally gives out and he sort of crumples the rest of the way to the countertop, barely avoiding braining himself on the fruit bowl that gets used for everything _but_ fruit. “Jesus fucking Christ, Cas.”

Cas’ laugh is breathless as he narrowly avoids the mess on Dean’s stomach, catching himself on the edge of the counter at the last moment, levering himself up. His eyes are glassy, lips parted, and there’s nothing Dean wants more in this world than to reel his husband in and kiss him until they both can’t breathe.

So he does. 

It’s awkward, and Cas does get messy (though Dean figures, in the scheme of things, a little semen ain’t nothing compared to blood and guts), but Dean gets his kiss, Cas’ mouth warm and full against his, and it’s perfect.

Even if what’s about to come next definitely ain’t.

  
  


***

When Dean discovered his husband bloody-faced and gnawing on his breakfast, he didn’t dare step closer to assess the mess. Call him squeamish or whatever, but he just stared, slack-jawed, from a distance. Now that he’s up close and gawking down at what was a fully-fledged man a couple of hours ago, relegated to chunky soup and a few barely recognizable body parts, he’s right on the cliff’s edge of an existential crisis. 

Everyone’s gonna die. It’s one of two things that’s inevitable (the other being the whiteness of the Oscars, not taxes, because if you’ve got the money, you can dodge ‘em). But actually being _faced_ with death at half-past ten on a Wednesday morning? 

Jeez, it’s a lot. 

And the smell? Like nothing else.

"We could put him under the lavender," Cas muses aloud, squatting down next to some of Balthazar’s jellied insides. 

Dean appreciates the irony, but, "Are you nuts? Do you have any idea how long all that took me to dig up and plant? Nope, no way.”

Cas hums and scans the mess. “We need to get him up and out of here before he soaks through the lawn.”

Feels like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted and eaten half the village, but okay.

Dean bends at the waist and picks up a half-chewed arm. It’s cold to the touch and there’s a tiny bit of give in it that Dean wasn’t expecting. Gross. “I can’t believe you ate this much of a human in what, forty minutes?”

Normally, Cas gets indigestion if he eats a bowl of chili too fast.

Cas shrugs carelessly. “I was hungry.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees emphatically, tossing the arm back to the ground and surveying their blood-stained lawn. “I get that. Couldn’t you have just gone to the store or something though? Gotten yourself a steak, maybe a couple of chicken breasts?”

“He was there.”

“Yeah, because _you_ put him there. You killed a man, Cas, and then ate him.” 

_And then_ you _let Cas give you a blow job because… you’re stupid? Just that trusting?_

Dean remembers a joke he heard once. What’s the ultimate show of trust? Two cannibals giving each other blow jobs. 

He’ll have to get it on a bumper sticker. 

Dusting off his hands, Cas pushes to his feet. He gingerly steps over Balthazar to come face to face with Dean. “I know this is difficult and I’m sorry for putting you in this position, I really am. But I have to believe that you’re with me in this.” He pauses, looking away and swallowing hard. “Your first concern was for me getting caught. It didn’t even occur to you to turn me in to Jody.” 

“Well, yeah,” Dean defends. “If you think I am raising those two animals by myself, then you’re mistaken, buddy.”

Cas assays him with calculating eyes. “One of them is a junior in high school, the other a senior. How much more raising is there to do?”

Considering Jack still climbs into bed with them when he has a nightmare, Dean figures a _lot_.

“If you’re trying to get me to say that I’d miss you if you got jailed for cannibalism, then you’re wrong, Cas. I’m just thinking of the societal stigma. This ain’t Hannibal; you’re not some quirky psychiatrist in a world of muted colors and complex sentence structures. Eating people wasn't cool in the eighties, when Dahmer and Nilsen were doing it, and it's only gotten less cool since then."

Cas’ mouth twists in a small, but thoroughly unrepentant smile. “You’re going to help me, aren’t you?”

Dean sighs dramatically. As if it was ever a question. “Obviously.”

  
  


***

  
  


A half-hour later sees them attempting to slop the Balthazar soup into one of their plastic storage boxes that Cas normally uses for taxes. 

Dean’s wearing gloves, because of course he is. Cas isn’t, because of course he isn’t.

They work in silence for a while, the California sun already threatening to bake Balthazar into the grass, staining it a tell-tale rust-red. Dean’s read enough Poe to know that ain’t a good idea. 

Eventually, though, he’s gotta ask. “What did he taste like?”

“Pork,” Cas answers succinctly. “And he was probably half as intelligent as a pig, so I feel as though I’ve simply eaten another of God’s dumb creatures.”

That’s some serial killer logic right there, and Dean tells his husband so. 

Cas pauses, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “What’s done is done. Do we have to keep going over it? I won’t do it again, I promise.”

They’ve both made mistakes during the course of their relationship, sure. There was that time Dean forgot to pick Cas up after his brief experiment with table tennis. He had to get the tutor to drive him home, less than twenty minutes after he’d almost blinded the poor fucker with a ball. Or the other time, when Dean ate all of the brownies Cas made for a bake sale, forcing Cas to show up with — shock, horror — store-bought. 

This is probably at least a hundred percent worse than both those instances, but according to Jerry Springer, marriage is all about working through problems. Together. 

“What about if we bury him out in the desert?” Dean asks. “Drive out there after dark, dig a hole, and dump him in it.”

With a handful of slop, Cas nods. “It’s not ideal, admittedly, but I can’t envisage any other means of disposal. A fire would be ideal, but there’s no way to do that without drawing the attention of our neighbors.”

They only have to contend with one side of the law enforcement sandwich at the moment, because FBI agent Henriksen is out on a case involving bank robbers or some shit, but even so. Jody Mills and her partner Donna Hanscum ain’t gonna let a funeral-pyre-slash-evidence-destroying-fire slide just because they have a soft spot for Claire. 

The desert it is then. 

  
  


***

“Fuck,” Dean grunts through his teeth. These containers were not meant to carry the remains of a human being, not with the tiny plastic lip that’s currently biting into the pads of Dean’s fingertips. 

Somewhere out in the great expanse of darkness beyond the headlights of Cas’ car, a wild coyote shouts. The moon is probably kicking about too, hidden behind the Vasquez rocks and layers of man-made pollution, but for now, they’re stuck with the squashed-rhombus-shaped slices of light from a car that’s renowned for depreciating in value faster than Beanie Babies. 

Crickets chirp.

At the other end of the container, Cas doesn’t seem to be having the same grip problem. Or at least he’s better at hiding it. 

An owl hoots. 

As they move away from Cas’ Maserati (because like fuck were they putting fuckstick Balthazar in Dean’s Baby), the blood and viscera slop from side to side of the container beneath a cover of hastily-applied cling wrap. 

“You couldn’t have found the lid?” Dean asks, eyes catching and sticking on his husband's over Balthazar’s guts.

Cas raises an eyebrow.

“Right,” Dean says. Then adds, “You'd think it would've been stored with the container, is all.”

“I can look for it when we get home,” Cas tells him, doing that head-tilt-scrutinizing thing Dean found so adorable when they first started dating. “Are you about to have a breakdown?”

Yeah, he may well be. Because literally _none_ of this would’ve happened if Cas and the kids had stayed put when Dean asked them to. Granted, he didn’t foresee homicide-slash-cannibalism as an outcome of them sneaking out after he explicitly told them to stay, but surely it only proves his point. 

He can’t say any of this of course, because this isn’t Cas’ fault either, not really. So instead of answering Cas’ question, Dean chooses to take issue with the first part of his statement. “When we get home? What good will the lid be when our container is stuffed with half a fucking body, buried in the goddamn desert, huh?”

“Well, obviously, I didn’t know that we were going to be burying the container as well,” Cas snaps back.

“What did you think, Cas? We'd take it home with us and clean it out and use it to store our taxes? Oh, wait. We can’t do that because we don’t have the _fucking lid_.”

Wordlessly deciding that this is an argument requiring over-the-top hand gestures and their full attention, they lower the container in unison, placing it a foot or so away from the hole they dug. 

Cas straightens back up again, bitchy, with his hands on his hips. “Fine. I won’t look for it, then.”

Dean’s mind is a blank, and he can’t tell if the chirping crickets emanate from their surroundings or his empty head. “Well… _good_.”

Twin beams of light sweep across them, turning Cas’ eyes translucent, and a hot spike of fear jams up Dean’s spine. “Oh, fuck,” he mutters, turning toward the source of light. It’s a car, maybe an SUV or something. “Someone’s coming.”

_Fuckity fuck fuck._

“Shit,” Cas agrees. “Who could be out here?”

Dean hasn’t got a clue. Maybe there’s some kind of Clint-Eastwood-western-style shootout planned. Or maybe some gangbangers are coming out here to do a drug deal. Or maybe it’s their cop neighbors come to arrest them for murder, desecration of a body, unlawful burial — all that fun stuff that’s likely to get them imprisoned in straitjackets and Lecter-esque face masks.

“C’mon, let’s get this in the hole,” Dean says, gripping his side of the container and starting to lift.

Cas does the same, and together, they begin to move it. But in their haste, a half foot or so away from the hole, the container tips over onto its side, and with the flimsy cling wrap being absolutely no barrier at all, Balthazar oozes out onto the ground. 

“Fuck!” Dean bites out, getting down on his hands and knees in the dust, dirt, and prickly grass, scooping the slop into the makeshift grave they’ve created.

“Do _not_ bring up the lid,” Cas warns, as he joins Dean, scooping and flinging.

The vehicle is getting closer, small stones pinging off the metal underside, the slow crunch of sand beneath tires.

This is getting them nowhere. Dean clambers to his feet, reaching for a shovel, and begins scraping the mess into the grave as best he can. 

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” Cas says, voice low and sincere.

Dean’s heart clenches in his chest. “Cas, don’t. Just keep going.”

The car is a few feet away now, most likely able to see _precisely_ what they’re doing, but denial ain’t just a river in Egypt and Dean Winchester is nothing if not pig-headed until the very end. 

“Get up,” Dean tells his husband as he turns into the light. Cas is at his side in an instant, and together they face the car’s oncoming lights. “Act casual,” Dean says, resting his hand atop the shovel’s handle. 

The car comes to a stop next to the Maserati. The engine switches off, but the headlights stay on, dazzling and impairing Dean’s ability to tell what make or model the car is. He doesn’t _think_ it’s a police vehicle, but that’s all he’s got. 

Taking his own advice, he gives a casual little wave with what he hopes is his least bloody hand. He doesn’t dare look down at his shirt, but he can see Cas in his periphery and it’s _bad_. Blood up to his elbows, covered in the thick, iron-rich stench of it. 

_Ugh._

“Really?” Cas asks, as though they’ve got much of a choice here. “This is what we’re doing?”

Apparently so. Dean tilts his head just enough to catch his husband’s eye. “Okay, we say we came across this murder site and we’re just cleaning it up.”

“Who cleans up murder sites?”

“I don’t know. We could be Mormons or something.”

Cas’ lips twitch. “Mormons don’t clean up murder sites.”

“Mormons are helpful.”

Abruptly heedless of the looming crisis, Cas half-turns to face him. “Is this your way of telling me that you want to be polygamous? Because I feel as though that conversation could have waited for a lower-stakes moment.”

There’s absolutely no time for Dean to explain to his husband that in the last twenty-four hours, he’s barely been able to keep up with _him_ , let alone a Mormon's dozen or whatever it is, because the passenger-side car door opens and someone steps out. Dean prepares himself, grip tightening on the shovel. If it comes down to him and Cas versus whoever this is, he will South-Bend-Shovel-Slayer a motherfucker.

They’re not going to jail; they’re just not. They’re both far too pretty.

_Why even take the chance?_

Logical and well-thought-through decision made, Dean charges the vague outline of the person, shovel raised overhead. “YARGHHH!”

“Dad, stop!” 

“Dean, no!”

_Wait, what?_

Past the lights now, he stops dead in his tracks and turns to look over to the driver’s side. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they do… “ _Claire?_ ” He swings his attention to the figure he almost murdered. “ _Jack?_ ”

_Oh._

Dean lowers the shovel as Cas comes closer to the bumper so he can see better too. “Kids, what the fu— hell are you doing here?”

Claire shuts her door with a thump. “We saw the blood on the lawn and the mess in the kitchen, and no-one was home, and we didn’t know what was happening!”

Ah, shit yeah. It had taken a longass time to get Balthazar packed and ready to go in his take-out box. Then they’d left without cleaning up beyond a cursory hose-down outside, because they had to drop off Balthazar’s douchemobile in the far corner of a Walmart lot (right out of reach of the cameras), find their way around the barren desert, and discover a suitably remote place before it got dark and they got lost. The kitchen mess kinda slipped their minds.

_Whoops._

However, instead of admitting that, Dean gets momentarily distracted by yet another infraction and defiance of his (non-existent) authority. “You’re not supposed to be driving Cas’ SUV,” Dean tells Claire. "It was careless and stupid of you to drive out here."

She could’ve at least let Jack drive. He drives like an old man who has stick-shift-induced amnesia.

Dean can practically feel Cas' eye-roll at the careless and stupid comment, 'cause, yeah, admittedly they're not exactly the poster boys for ‘careful and smart’ right now.

“Unwad your panties,” Claire says, making a show of pocketing the car keys in her leather jacket. And, really? This is where they’re at as a family now?

“How did you find us?” Cas interjects before Dean can get to grips with a suitable comeback.

“You put that tracker app on all our phones,” Jack answers, holding his cell up. 

(Mostly so that there wasn’t a repeat incident of the table-tennis debacle.)

Dean clicks his fingers. “Oh, yeahhhh. Technology’s amazing, ain’t it? So, I guess we’ll see you at home. Glad you could come out. Jack, you drive back.”

Suspicious, Claire glances between Cas and Dean, before her sightline follows to where the headlights are honed in on the spilled container like a fucking spotlight. “Oh my God, did you kill someone?” She and Jack start to walk past Cas and Dean toward the mess.

“No!” Dean protests. “We were out for a drive and—”

“—Yes, I did,” Cas says.

Dean slants a glance sideways. “Okay, so we’re _not_ gonna lie. Would’ve been good to know in advance.”

To Claire, Cas says, “He was an assh— a not very nice man. And I ate him.”

Jack crouches down next to the upended container, surprisingly calm for someone who just found out that one of their dads has more in common with Albert Fish than his favorite ninja turtle. “But you only ate some of him?”

Cas shifts his weight and sighs, the way he does at PTA meetings when he’s feeling judged. “He weighed about a hundred and sixty-five pounds. That’s far too much for breakfast.”

_Huh. The undead version of overordering?_

“I didn’t want to get either of you or your father involved in this,” Cas explains, glancing at Jack, Claire, and Dean in turn. “I killed and ate someone. That’s not what a good person does. I understand if you want no part of this anymore.”

Firstly, it’s kinda late when Dean’s covered in the ichor of a realtor who didn’t take no for an answer, and secondly, it’s super fucking dumb. 

“We’re not going anywhere Cas, and neither are you,” Dean tells him firmly. “We’re family and we don’t just fuc— fricking bail when sh— things get difficult.”

Claire nods, one quick jerk of her head in confirmation. “Yep.”

Grabbing the other shovel, Jack nods too. “Yeah.”

Heart swelling with pride for their kids, Dean swings his attention to Cas. There’s palpable relief in the blue of his eyes, a quiet sense of solace. This whole thing is super fucked up, but at least they’re in it together. 

Over around the other side of Balthazar’s final resting hole, Jack starts shoveling dirt, the scrape of metal on rock loud in the quiet. “Sorry,” he says when everyone looks in his direction. “The less time spent at a crime scene, the better.”

Dean feels his eyebrows hit his hairline. He doesn’t even wanna know how their adorkable son who has ducks on his jim-jams knows that shit. Cas, however, apparently does. “What do you know about it?”

“I spend a lot of time on the internet and watching Netflix documentaries.” Jack shrugs, like it ain’t no big thang. “And the first thing about crime is, you don’t want to get caught.”

 _Well, duh._

Goddamn, Dean and Cas could’ve been zombie — _undead_ — serial killers this whole time, and their kids would’ve had their backs with the combined knowledge garnered from TV. What a wasted opportunity.

“Did the deceased have a family?” Jack asks Cas, pausing his mostly useless soil shuffling.

“No,” Cas answers after a beat. “I’m pretty sure he moved here alone a couple of weeks ago. He never mentioned anybody else.”

Jack’s gaze bounces between Dean and Cas. And it’s all kinds of sinister when their softhearted, I-can’t-tell-a-lie son says, “Then I guess you know what you have to do.”

There’s a long moment where Dean’s wondering if he’s the only dumbass who doesn’t know what they have to do. There isn’t exactly a manual out there: _What to do when your husband goes all z-word and starts eating rapey colleagues._

One look at Claire, Cas and their determined faces suggests that Dean really _is_ the only dumbass who doesn’t know what they have to do. “Is anyone gonna explain or are we really going for the whole cryptic, speak-in-riddles Hannibal vibes here?”

Cas breaks it to him gently. “We’ll have to gain access to Balthazar’s apartment — without being seen, of course. Pack all of his things up, get them down several flights of stairs — again, without being seen — and dump or burn them somewhere—”

“—without being seen?” Dean supplies. 

Cas nods gravely. "And all without leaving a trace or getting caught on security cameras."

“Oh,” Dean says, because apparently, this is his life now. “Is that all?”


End file.
